At The Seams

The door opened for May and immediately, a figure rose out of its chair at the center of the room. Aro greets her warmly, with a smile and nod and though she can see the tension in his features, his welcome was genuine.

"Thanks for taking the time, May." Aro waves a hand to the chair next to him. "Please, sit."

She does. Then she looks around at the stark emptiness of the room. "Will anyone else be joining us?" she asked.

"Uh, no. Aashir and his team have seen all this. Katrina and her team are preoccupied, so I'll be speaking to them at a later time," Aro answered. His answer never explained why Mira and Shino were not invited but May chose to let the matter rest. He remained standing, distinctly away from the seat he had offered her.

"Aashir's told you about the Sol Divisive," Aro started. It was confirmation more than it was a question.

May answered anyways. "He has."

"I've never heard of them. Seems no one has," Aro said, watching the screen as Kain brought up what he wanted to present.

"So it seems. Aashir's group was our first contact."

"We expect to have more contact." He turned to her and pointed to the screen, asking, "Has he shown you this footage?"

One look brought up nothing familiar. She shook her head.

Kain let it play. At the same time, Marie let May know she had just received a copy. The King's Gate stood far and massive in the background. From the perspective of all three Ghosts, she could see the Vex wandering out front and the Cabal force moving towards it. She saw them clash. It was Kain who explained. "The Cabal have been trying to take this Gate for a while now," the Ghost narrated, "They almost did too. Until…" The footage was fast-forwarded. To the activation of the King's Gate. "Until them," he finished. He moved the footage forward to the berserker, moss-covered Vex. Then to the hand, one that had May's snow-white eyebrows against her hairline. "And...this."

"I've never seen a Vex unit that size before…"

"Neither have we," Aro admitted, "Even Wrath(K), in his full power, was smaller." Kain let the footage play as normal. "This was the Cabal's first contact as well and...they were entirely unprepared."

An understatement, the Awoken Warlock thought. Before her eyes, the Cabal were massacred. And when the hand dropped on the last Colossus, it took all her fortitude not to flinch, in startlement and in almost-pity.

"Aashir's told me of a terminal they attempted to get access to. In the smaller Cabal base just some distance away from the King's Gate, do you know it?"

"I do."

"Their access was blocked by high levels of security," Aro said. "Difficult even for a Ghost with as much experience as Fel to crack." Aro approaches the screen. May notices how he almost covers it, with how tall he is.

She asked, "What do you think they're hiding?"

"That's what Aashir wants to find out. He wants to pull Kayla away from the Reef temporarily to see what she can do. A Ghost might not be able to crack their security in good time but a Warmind might. If he's telling me, on Ikora's orders, I assume it's because she's seriously considering it."

"Well, clearly," May gestured to the video, "They want the Gate."

"Yes but how?" He asked rhetorically, "And for what?" A quick mental word to Kain has the Ghost turning back the footage to just before the Cabal and the Vex clashed. "In my opinion," he muttered, "I think they mean to destroy it."

"That is too small a force to destroy something that big," May pointed out, "Not enough siege weapons, not enough heavy artillery. They use worse against Guardians just dune-surfing on their Sparrows."

The mental image that conjured pulled a laugh from Aro. Akira still gave him grief for nearly being shot out of the sky by Cabal artillery and that was well over a year ago. "I mean before they wanted to take it and then destroy it. To stop something like that..." Kain moved forward to the hand, "From wreaking havoc on their base."

"Rasputin and the Guardians on one side, crazed, towering Vex on the other. I suppose it shouldn't be so surprising that they'd begin lashing out," Marie said inwardly. Outwardly, May asked, "If they managed to destroy it, would that be such a bad thing?"

The question seemed to give Aro pause. Then he sighed. "I believe so. It's our only way into the Garden, to its Heart. But I don't think it's Pride's only way."

"What makes you say that?"

Aro's hand tightened and released. "Just...just a hunch," he said, stammering only slightly, "Pride's crafty. Well-learned in matters of Light and Dark, I mean...he was doing this whole Light-bearing thing longer than even the Warlords and the Iron Lords. Predates them by a good century, I think."

"You know so much about him…"

Aro gave a limp shrug. "I know little. Just guessing." He scratched his head. "And with the way my mind jumps into alternate realities…" He huffed, "My point is that he may know other ways into the Black Garden. Ways we won't be able to find until it's too late. We need this gateway."

For a man with no memories of his former life, Aro knew his brother surprisingly well. While he spoke, she looked at him. She never saw Pride's face, that awful day on the Moon, her first day of being alive again. Only Mira did and it was a glimpse so brief, not even her Ghost could recall it. But the feeling Pride exuded, the smothering pressure, she remembered it perfectly. Years had passed and that day on Venus, she could tell who he was just seconds before he took her and the rest of her clan down like they were nothing.

Mira. Shino. Damn it. Now she was thinking about them. Them and the fact that she never got a proper answer to her earlier question. May called Aro's name. He turned towards her, giving her a good look into his eyes. Dark brown, nearly black. Solid and earthen. "Why did you call on me specifically?" Those dark eyes blinked, "Mira's our leader. You could have even brought the entire team in."

Aro looks at her for a while longer. Then his eyes move down to his hands, clasped in front of him, fingers wringing. He muttered, "I see how they look at me. Maybe they think they're hiding it but I see it. Mira...she doesn't trust me anymore. Not like she used to. She used to give me advice, offer to spar so I can learn more about close-quarters fighting but now she only talks to me when she has to. And she clearly doesn't enjoy it."

As he continued speaking, Aro's voice dropped lower and lower, until May had to almost strain just to hear him. "When she thinks I'm not looking, she stares. Like she expects the Gate to burst out of me at any moment and swallow her whole. Like she expects my eyes to turn red and for me to murder yet another person she cares about."

His jaw worked. He turned his eyes down and his voice came out painfully soft. "And Shino? I don't remember the last time Shino had a nice thing to say about me. When he bothers to speak to me at all," he said, "He doesn't smile at me or laugh when I'm around. He just flatout doesn't like me anymore. Professionalism keeps him from saying it but...he doesn't need to say it."

Aro took in a shaky breath, the muscles of his jaw flexing even harder. "Sorry," he said. His voice cracked just slightly when he did. "I've...I've just never lost a friend before. Let alone two. And they were good ones."

May sighed. She wanted an answer and she got it. Aro felt safe around her, more comfortable, less judged. The closest he will ever get to how things used to be. And she felt…May shook her head. "Have you spoken to Daniel? Or Christine? About Shino, at least?"

He was shaking his head before she could finish. "I'm not going to ruin their friendships and their relationships for my own hurt feelings." He mutters his answer through grit teeth. May could almost taste the bitterness. "They love them. It's not right to get in the way of that."

"I'm sorry." It sounded so weak and meaningless coming from her. But only because it was.

"Don't apologize. They have the right to feel how they feel. Not remembering the things I've done doesn't absolve me of them. The fact that they don't let it get in the way of our work, even though they probably have every right to take it out on me...it's more than I deserve."

She couldn't argue with that. As much as she wished to, she could not. May rose to her feet just as Aro sat back down, hunched over again, his chin resting on his hands. "Thank you for letting me know," she said, "About the Cabal and the Vex. I...I'll pass this along to my team. Don't trouble yourself with them."

He turned towards her. "Thank you," he responds meekly.

May nods and starts towards the exit. It slid open, bathing her in the light of the hall, striking compared to the darkness of the meeting room. She stops before crossing the threshold. She says, "You're right, Aro. The others have the right to feel how they feel."

He says nothing. Her back remained to him, with only her head turned. "But that doesn't justify their behavior," she tells him, "They don't get free reign to take out their frustrations on you as they please." He remained silent. "And you're under no obligation to suffer it. Remember that."

May passed through the door and left, leaving Aro alone in the dark. The look in his eyes remained a bright and burning memory. Guilt, hurt, loneliness, resignation and all in one so young. She remembered that hurt and the guilt. How long was it before she finally stopped blaming herself for Marie's death? Recently, was the only estimate she could muster.

She was feeling guilty again. Not for Marie but for other reasons. Reasons she'd rather not think about.

"Daniel?"

"Mm?"

"Message," Caesar said, "From Petra."

Daniel rubbed a hand into bleary eyes and pushed black hair from them. He craned his neck to look down at his chest and found Toland's journal, left there when he fell asleep. He picked it up, closed it and tossed it onto the nightstand. "Can't it wait?" He grumbled as he shut off the light and turned over, pressing his face into the satin pillows.

"It's about the Black Garden," he said anyway, "We meet her in ten hours. We've found our key."